Practice Bout
by Darthlink79
Summary: Cornelia and Guilford fight in a practice match after the war.


_She's...fast! _Guilford could never quite understand how she moved like that. He brought his sword up to meet hers and met it in the middle, the clinging reverberating through his hand. She loosened her arm and he fell towards her and she brought her foot up in an inside crescent kick to his face. Guilford was immediately blindsided and turned sideways, stumbling back as he struggled to maintain balance. "Guilford. That was a basic tactic. Even if you have just recovered enough to fight you shouldn't have fallen for such a simple trick." Cornelia stood there with her sword by her side, never quite letting her guard down even as it looked like it. Guilford turned to face her and examined her closely. She wasn't even sweating, this was too easy for her.

_Appel!_ He stamped his front foot down hard on the ground, which DID actually catch Cornelia open for a moment, as she looked down at it. _Flèche! _He lunged forward on the foot that he stamped with, crossing his back leg infront of it and thrusting at Cornelia's shoulder with the practice blade. She dropped down a bit forward underneath Guilford's blade and lunged foward and grabbed him by the throat pushing him down onto his back with a thud and she straddled him, blade at his throat. "Bout finished. That was sad Guilford. Did you honestly think I dropped my guard? Only show vulnerability if you are drawing an enemy in for a counter attack." Guilford smirked a bit. "Of course, your highness." He brought his knee hard into the small of her back and forced her forward, and he grabbed her shoulders and pinned her to the ground roughly. She was able to curl her legs before the fullness of Guilford's body had gotten ontop of her. Planting her feet into his chest with her heeled boots she pushed and painfully forced him off of her and he landed a few feet back on his back.

Cornelia's eyes glanced over at her blade and she scurried towards it, Guilford dragged his leg sideways and brought her back down onto her stomach with a quick sweeping motion and scrambled to get on top of her while she was on her stomach. He inched across the floor, feeling like the woman was a mile away and she turned and looked at him approaching and grabbed his shoulders, right as he reached forward to grab hers. She kicked off the ground and tried to force herself on top, but was unable to overcome Guilford's arm strength with her weight. She found herself elbowing his elbows anything to make them less tense so she could get a better grip. They rolled around for a few minutes like this, neither one of them making any head way (though they could have were they trying to hurt each other, Cornelia was just a knee-shot to the groin away from besting Guilford.) until Guilford made a critical mistake. He had attempted to reach down and grab her from the stomach so he could fling her up, but the instant he removed his hand from her shoulders, she pinned it down to his side and wrenched the other one to the ground, and she moved up a bit further and reset the position from earlier, only a little further forward with her hand on his throat. "Again. Bout Finished Guilford." But the knight refused to be beaten so easily.

_I have a slight edge in strength, but she's faster than I am. If I can keep this a grappling match, I can win this. _He arched his back a bit and then used that as a spring, flinging his legs up and wrapping them around her chest. It was a stretch but he was able to do it. He pulled her down flat and held her there as he let go of her and then scrambled a bit to top her, placing his knees on her knees and pinning her wrists down by her head. He smiled in delight when the Second Princess looked up at him in a bit of shock. (For she didn't know Guilford to be that flexible.) He held her there, his weight movable for her, but not in the way she was pinned. Guilford knew she was going to try and distract him, and before he knew it there was a head coming towards his and he pulled back a bit, just out of range, though the flailing of her hair took his glasses off and left him nearly sightless. "Lady Cornelia. This match is finished." He said as he lay atop her, her wrists and legs pinned beneath him.

The Second Princess smiled and laughed. "I guess you have Guilford. Just this once."


End file.
